Eat My Lunch, the social enterprise that feeds Kiwi kids through a buy-one/give-one delivery model will launch the first lending based crowdfunding campaign on PledgeMe, this June 13.

Eat My Lunch will raise a maximum of $1,000,000 by issuing ‘Lunch Bonds’, an offer designed to provide a financial return to their ‘crowd’, but also supply more free lunches to Kiwi children.

Currently operating in Auckland and Hamilton, Eat My Lunch founder, Lisa King, says the money raised will be spent the money raised to launch in Wellington, as well as improve the underlying technology of the business.

“We are heavily reliant on manual processes at the moment to organise ordering and logistics,” says King. “We think with a more robust technical platform we’ll be able to scale and service more cities and towns”.

“Wellington makes sense as the next city to expand to because it has a strong community focus. We have already received support from local businesses and the council to launch there.”

Image: Eat My Lunch founder Lisa King

The minimum investment in the Lunch Bonds is $1,000 and lenders have a choice between two combinations of interest rate and giving – six percent interest, plus a lunch given to a child each month per $1,000 lent; or zero percent interest and two monthly lunches given per $1,000 lent.

“We wanted to give investors an opportunity to not only make a difference for themselves, but also a difference for Kiwi kids in need,” says King.

“It’s going to be really interesting to see what happens when investors can choose between a good financial return on their investment, or to help feed more kids in need on the same campaign page,” says PledgeMe CEO Anna Guenther.

Last year Eat My Lunch ran the most pledged project crowdfunding campaign ever in New Zealand. Over 2,500 pledgers helped raise just under $130,000 to set up their commercial kitchen.

“We’re hoping for a similar number of supporters again, but a larger pledge amount as the money will be repaid. We believe our community is keen to help us grow our impact, especially if they get repaid for their support. We can’t wait to see what we can achieve with the New Zealand public,” says King.

“It’s great to see a commercial approach around strengthening community, where the well-being and support of children that are in need is at the centre of every decision,” says Guenther.

“We can’t wait to see the impact and scale Eat My Lunch will reach with the money they borrow from their crowd. This is how we imagined crowdlending would work for Social Enterprises.”

Guenther says that PledgeMe.Lend has more companies and organisations getting ready to launch campaigns to raise funds by offering loan notes to their crowd.

“We truly believe this is the future of the financial markets,” says Guenther.

“Not only being able to raise money to grow, but to grow the wealth of your local community when you pay that money back. No longer are decisions in the hands of banks and a select few. Crowdlending will democratise debt.”